


baby, you're a haunted house

by darlingargents



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Canon-Typical Pennywise, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, Haunted Houses, Horror, Loyalty, M/M, Teen Romance, The Neibolt House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 03:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: Bill and Richie go into the Neibolt House alone.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Richie Tozier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	baby, you're a haunted house

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chiiyo86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/gifts).



> Title from the song of the same name by Gerard Way.

The Neibolt house towers over them, and as Richie stares at it, he swears it’s sucking all the sunlight into it, like it’s a black hole. It’s basically the dictionary definition of creepy, and he’s about to go inside.

He wants to go back in time and make sure his younger self never makes friends with Bill. He’s going to be murdered in a haunted house and it’s all Bill’s fault.

“I d-d-don’t want everyone t-t-to g-g-get hurt,” Bill says, and Richie looks back at him, on the steps of the house. “I’ll g-g-go alone.”

“Fuck no, dude,” Richie says, and immediately hates himself for it. What, does he want to get himself killed? “I’ll come with you.”

“Anyone else?” Bill says weakly, and the rest of the Losers just look at him. “Okay. M-m-me and R-R-Richie, then.”

“All right.” Richie bounces on the balls of his feet, wonders if this is going to be his last day alive, and goes up the steps to stand beside Bill. The wood creaks and bends under his feet.

“That place is a fucking death trap,” Eddie says, staring in horror.

“Don’t worry, Eddie, you won’t be the one that dies,” Richie says as cheerfully as he can manage. “See you guys later!” He grabs Bill’s right hand with his left, and before he can second-guess himself or wonder if he’s gone totally off the deep end, he pushes the door open and they step inside.

As the door closes soundlessly behind them, it’s like they’re instantly in a different world. The sounds of the outside — the quiet birdsong, the distant traffic, the other Losers — falls away. All there is is the house, and it feels like it’s waiting for them.

It’s seriously creepy. Richie does not like it. At all. The whole place is dark and rotting, cobwebs and dead rats everywhere; the furniture and style is old and Gothic-looking, the broken windows somehow still radiating a kind of old-world elegance.

Bill is breathing hard through clenched teeth beside Richie, and Richie realizes he’s still holding Bill’s hand. He moves to let go, and Bill holds it tighter, his nails digging into Richie’s skin. Richie gives him a look, his heart pounding in a way that’s not entirely fear, and Bill looks back calmly.

“W-w-we need to s-s-stay together, R-R-Richie,” he says, and Richie nods. He adjusts his grip on Bill’s hand and they go deeper into the house. Together.

They make it five steps before it starts.

Every door around them slams shut, and the space seems to close until they’re surrounded on all sides by walls. Richie’s heart jumps into his throat and he tries to go backwards, instinctively, but Bill shoves forward and the illusion dissipates. They end up in a room with a row of broken windows and a couch tipped on its side. As Richie watches, the windows begin to bleed; streaks of scarlet run down, gathering on the broken points, pooling on the windowsills and dripping towards the rotting wooden floor. The surface of the couch starts to bubble and a squeaking sound pierces Richie’s ears; a rat claws its way through one of the cushions and digs its way out, followed by another, and another and another. A flood of rats, and the blood keeps coming, coating the windows and running across the floor, towards them.

Bill takes off at a run for the stairs. Richie, still holding his hand so tight that he’s afraid one of them will break bones, follows.

The stairs are rickety and creak under every thudded step. Richie’s heart is pounding as Bill drags him up the stairs, hoping against hope that none of the steps shatter into splinters under his feet. At the top, Bill stops and Richie almost runs into him.

They’re in the middle of a corridor that runs in either direction, left to right, and it’s dim — dimmer than it should be, considering the sunny day outside — but Richie thinks it goes further than the house does. Bill squeezes his hand once, a gesture of comfort, and starts to walk to the left.

The corridor stretches on and on. The rotting carpet under their feet is worn away in places, exposing bare wood and splinters sticking straight up. Broken glass crunches under their feet from broken picture frames littering the walls. Richie looks at one of the portraits as they pass and has to look away — the eyes of the woman in the picture have been eaten away, leaving holes in her face, her mouth stretching into a grimace.

They’ve been walking for longer than Richie thinks is realistic for the size of the house when the corridor turns sharply to the left and there’s an ending. A boarded-up window lets in faint beams of reddish light, the colour of blood against the walls. There’s a door on the left, and as Richie looks at it, it creaks invitingly open.

Bill adjusts their hands — they’re both sweating and it’s getting uncomfortably sticky, but Richie is too afraid to let go for even a moment — and pushes the door further open.

A childish laugh rings around them, and Bill steps inside. Richie follows, and the door slams shut behind them with a swirl of dust.

This room is large, dark, and bare. The only light is from a skylight above them covered in leaves and dirt, and the light in here is reddish too. The spots of light on the floor look like splashes of blood. There’s not much at all except the rotting floorboards, the peeling wallpaper, and the dust that’s going to make Richie sneeze.

“ _Billy…_ ” a voice calls, echoing around them like they’re in a canyon or massive room. The voice sounds like a man imitating a child, and something about it makes the hairs on the back of Richie’s neck stand up. “ _Come and play…_ ”

Bill squeezes Richie’s hand tighter, and steps forward. “Sh-show yourself, you c-c-coward.”

“ _Oh, Billy…_ ” The voice distorts and twists as a laugh bounces around them, and when it speaks again, it’s unmistakably Georgie’s voice. “ _Why didn’t you protect me, Billy? Come and play with me, forever…_ ”

“Fuh-fuh,” Bill starts, and grabs at his hair with one hand, pulling. “Fuh-fuh-fuh—”

Richie’s heart clenches as Bill struggles with the word, and shoves past him, into the middle of the room, still holding Bill’s hand. He can feel Bill’s frantic pulse against his fingers. “ _Fuck_ you, clown!” he shouts, and Pennywise laughs.

“Fuck you!” Bill shouts, and Pennywise stops laughing.

The walls start to bubble like boiling water, and the door behind them starts rattling frantically. Richie turns back and reaches for the handle, but it starts to turn red and then white-hot, and he jerks his fingers back. The bubbles on the walls get bigger and one of them bursts, spilling blood onto the floor. Another, and another, and one of them bursts next to Richie’s head and sprays both of them with blood. It burns against his skin, like being splashed with acid.

Bill pushes past Richie and grabs the white-hot handle. It melts under his fingers, and the smell of cooking flesh makes Richie gag, but he turns the handle and pulls the door open, and pulls away his uninjured hand.

There’s another explosion of blood behind them. Bill runs, and Richie follows him. The door slams shut behind them without either of them touching it, and they run back down the hallway. It goes quicker this time, and they run past the stairs and down the other end.

They stop at the end of the hallway, both panting. This section is less presentable — the wallpaper is entirely gone, replaced by rotting and cracked wood panelling. The scratching noises of rats are all around them. There’s splatters of blood on Bill’s face and in his hair, and without thinking, Richie goes to wipe off some of it that’s next to his mouth. Bill pauses as Richie’s thumb rubs the blood and comes away wet.

“I d-d-don’t know if I can d-d-do this,” Bill says. “It’s using G-G-Georgie, I can’t—”

Bill turns away, squeezing his eyes shut. Richie can see a tear running down his face, and he’s suddenly angry, almost furious, at Pennywise. For doing this to Bill — to Bill, who’s always been brave and strong and better than this.

“You _can_ do it,” Richie says. “Come on. Fuck the clown. Do you really think it’s going to win? We’re better than that. _You’re_ better than that.”

Bill breathes hard, and holds Richie’s hand tighter, and nods. “Thank you, R-Richie,” he says.

“No problem,” Richie says, which might be the dumbest thing to say ever, but whatever. It’s all true. If there’s one unshakeable belief that he has, it’s that Bill Denbrough is one of his best friends, and he believes Bill can do anything.

They’re standing in front of a door. As they catch their breaths, the handle starts to turn, a few spins in one direction and then the other, back and forth, faster and faster until it’s spinning like a top. Richie moves towards it, and it stops, as if inviting them to open the door.

Richie does.

The room is dark, and as they step in, hands still clenched tight together, it suddenly lights up. They’re inside a circus tent, the ceiling fifty feet up, the ground covered in sawdust. A calliope plays faintly somewhere behind them. The billowing tent is red and white, and through a hole in the ceiling, Richie can see the sun.

Richie looks back, and the door they came through slams shut and vanishes. They’re stuck in this place.

“R-R-Richie,” Bill says, and points up.

There’s a tightrope stretched across the room up high, and a trapeze swing below it that’s swinging back and forth like a pendulum. On the tightrope is the clown, balloons in each hand, wobbling his way across the tightrope.

“Welcome to the circus, Billy! And Richie, too! How lovely to see you both!” Pennywise laughs, the sound echoing around the tent, and does a flip off the tightrope. He falls too slowly for gravity, lets go of the balloons, and catches the trapeze swing. His arms are too long for his body; his curl-toe shoes brush the sawdust floor.

He does another flip, and lands in front of them, bowing. “Ta-da!” he crows, and stands up straight, towering over them. “Welcome to the show! I hope you enjoyed it! But the show’s over now.”

The music begins to swell as Pennywise’s arms stretch out towards them, and Richie does the only thing he can think of. He moves back to where the door was before, and hits something solid. He feels around for the handle and there it is. He goes to open it, and it stops.

Locked.

“Bill, help me,” he says, not knowing why — the door is locked, Bill shouldn’t have any more luck than he did. Bill turns around and puts his hand over Richie’s. Pennywise’s fingers brush the back of Richie’s neck, and together, they turn the handle.

It opens, and they spill out onto the floor. The music cuts off, and when Richie looks back, the door leads to a normal empty room. The room is just a room — Pennywise is gone.

“Run,” Bill says, and they do. Still holding hands for their lives.

They make it down the stairs, one of the lower ones cracking under Richie’s foot, and as they run through the house, Richie looks back and sees a well leading deep underground, vines growing all around. A furious roar shakes the house — Pennywise isn’t happy that they’re running, and it fills Richie with hope.

They burst out the front door into the real sunshine, panting and shaking. The others are still there — playing cards, of all things.

“What did you see?” Eddie asks. Richie lets go of Bill’s hand, and it aches just a little to be empty. He glances back at Bill, and notices the blood that had been on his face is gone.

“The fucking clown,” Richie says, and moves to sit down. Eddie flips the top card off the pile. Joker.

They all pause, looking down at the card, and it winks.

Eddie lets out a little shriek and then winces in embarrassment. Stan pats his back gingerly. Bev sweeps all the cards together and wraps them in a rubber band.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says authoritatively, and there’s no discussion. They mount their bikes and ride.

Richie follows Bill all the way back to his house, even as the others go their own directions. When Bill gets off his bike in his driveway, Richie follows suit.

Bill gives him a look and sighs. “G-g-go home, Richie.”

“Thank you,” he says, not entirely sure why he’s saying it. “I would’ve been dead meat without you.”

“W-w-we saved each other,” Bill says.

“I guess so.” He looks at Bill for a moment longer. Here, in the sunshine, this kid with an overly large bike and a stutter looks like the best person in the universe.

Richie isn’t even aware of making the choice to kiss him.

He pulls away, and Bill keeps looking at him, surprised.

“Thanks, Bill,” he says, and gets back on his bike.

“Thanks, R-R-Richie,” Bill says, and touches his lips, briefly, as if unsure what just happened. “W-w-why—”

“See you later,” Richie says, and bikes away, feeling himself blushing fiercely.

He can’t bring himself to regret any of it, though.


End file.
